Transcutaneous near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) of muscle requires coupling between the device and the skin. An unfortunate by-product of this coupling is contact force artefact, where the amount of contact force between the device and the skin affects measurements. Contact force artefact is well known, but largely ignored in most NIRS research. We performed preliminary investigations of contact force artefact to quantify tissue behaviour to inform future NIRS designs. Specifically, we conducted three studies on contact force artefact: (i) an experimental investigation of static load at varied levels of contact force and muscle activation, (ii) an experimental investigation of oscillating load at varied levels of contact force and frequency, and (iii) a Monte Carlo simulation of photon propagation through skin, adipose tissue, and muscle. Our results confirmed that contact force artefact is a confounding factor in NIRS muscle measurements because contact force affects measured hemoglobin concentrations in a manner consistent with muscle contractions. Further, the effects of contact force are not altered by muscle contraction and a likely candidate for the mechanism responsible for contact force artefact is the viscoelastic compression of superficial tissues (skin and adipose) during loading. Simulation data suggests that adipose tissue plays a key role in diffuse reflectance of photons, so any compression of the superficial tissues will affect the reflected signal. Further research is required to fully understand the mechanisms behind contact force artefact, which will, in turn, inform future NIRS device designs.
